Archive for June, 2007

Where is the G-damn f**king flag? I want the G-damn f**king flag up every f**king morning at f**king sunrise.” (From the book “Inside The White House” by Ronald Kessler, p. 244 – Hillary to the staff at the Arkansas Governor’s mansion on Labor Day, 1991)

“You sold out, you mother f**ker! You sold out!” (From the book “Inside” by Joseph Califano, p. 213 – Hillary yelling at Democrat lawyer.)

“It’s been said, and I think it’s accurate, that my husband was obsessed by terrorism in general and al-Qaida in particular.” (Hillary telling a post-9/11 world what a ‘great’ commander in chief her husband was; Dateline, NBC 4/16/2004.)

“I have to admit that a good deal of what my husband and I have learned [about Islam] has come from our daughter.” (TruthInMedia.org 8/8/1999 – Hillary at a White House function, proudly tells some Muslim groups she is gaining a greater appreciation of Islam because Chelsea was then taking a class on the “religion of peace”)

F**k off! It’s enough that I have to see you shit-kickers every day, I’m not going to talk to you too!! Just do your G*damn job and keep your mouth shut.” (From the book “American Evita” by Christopher Anderson, p. 90 – Hillary to her State Trooper bodyguards after one of them greeted her with “Good morning.”

“You f**king idiot.” (From the book “Crossfire” p. 84 – Hillary to a State Trooper who was driving her to an event.)

“If you want to remain on this detail, get your f**king ass over here and grab those bags!” (From the book “The First Partner” p. 259 – Hillary to a Secret Service Agent who was reluctant to carry her luggage because he wanted to keep his hands free in case of an incident.)

“Get f**ked! Get the f**k out of my way!!! Get out of my face!!!”(From the book “Hillary’s Scheme” p. 89 – Hillary’s various comments to her Secret Service detail agents.)

“Stay the f**k back, stay the f**k away from me! Don’t come within ten yards of me, or else! Just f**king do as I s ay, Okay!!!?” (From the book “Unlimited Access”, by Clinton FBI Agent in Charge, Gary Aldrige, p. 139 – Hillary screaming at her Secret Service detail.)

“Many of you are well enough off that [President Bush’s] tax cuts may have helped you. We’re saying that for America to get back on track, we’re probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We’re going to have to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” (Hillary grandstanding at a fund raising speech in San Francisco; SFGate.com 6/28/2004.)

“Why do I have to keep proving to people that I am not a liar?!”(From the book “The Survivor,” by John Harris, p. 382 – Hillary in her 2000 Senate campaign)

“Where’s the miserable c*ck sucker?” (From the book “The Truth About Hillary” by Edward Klein, p. 5 – Hillary shouting at a Secret Service officer)

“No matter what you think about the Iraq war, there is one thing we can all agree on for the next days – we have to salute the courage and bravery of those who are risking their lives to vote and those brave Iraqi and American soldiers fighting to protect their right to vote.” (Was posted on Hillary Clinton’s senate.gov web site on 1/28/05)

“Put this on the ground! I left my sunglasses in the limo. I need those sunglasses. We need to go back!” (From the book “Dereliction of Duty” p. 71-72 – Hillary to Marine One helicopter pilot to turn back while en route to Air Force One.)

A right-wing network was after his presidency…including perverting the Constitution.” (To Barbara Walters about the Republicans who impeached her husband; 20/20, ABC 6/8/2003.)

“What are you doing inviting these people into my home? These people are our enemies! They are trying to destroy us!” (From the book “The Survivor” by John Harris, p. 99 – Hillary screaming to an aide, when she found out that some Republicans had been invited to the White House)

“I mean, you’ve got a conservative and right-wing press presence with really nothing on the other end of the political spectrum.” (C-Span, 1/19/1997 – Hillary complains about the mainstream media, which are all conservatives in her opinion)

“Come on Bill, put your dick up! You can’t f**k her here!!” (From the book “Inside The White House” by Ronald Kessler, p. 243 – Hillary to Gov. Clinton when she spots him talking with an attractive female at an Arkansas political rally)

“You know, I’m going to start thanking the woman who cleans the restroom in the building I work in. I’m going to start thinking of her as a human being” (From the book “The Case Against Hillary Clinton” by Peggy Noonan, p. 55)

“You show people what you’re willing to fight for when you fight your friends.” (From the book “The Agenda” by Bob Woodward, ch. 14)

“We are at a stage in history in which remolding society is one of the great challenges facing all of us in the West.” (From the book “I’ve Always Been A Yankee Fan” by Thomas D. Kuiper, p 119 – During her 1993 commencement address at the University of Texas)

“The only way to make a difference is to acquire power” (From the book “I’ve Always Been A Yankee Fan” by Thomas D. Kuiper, p 68 – Hillary to a friend before starting law school.)

“We just can’t trust the American people to make those types of choices…. Government has to make those choices for people” (From the book “I’ve Always Been A Yankee Fan” by Thomas D. Kuiper, p 20 – Hillary to Rep. Dennis Hastert in 1993 discussing her expensive, disastrous taxpayer-funded health care plan)

“I am a fan of the social policies that you find in Europe” (From the book “I’ve Always Been A Yankee Fan” by Thomas D. Kuiper, p. 76 – Hillary in 1996)

Are you tired of being told that “gun control” is a chronic pain that you have to accept because there’s no cure? Do you — a law abiding person — want to be free: to own whichever firearms you want to own, regardless of where in America you live; from waiting periods, gun bans, magazine capacity restrictions, etc.; to spend your time on the range or in the field, rather than fighting “gun control”?

Are you tired of giving hard earned bucks to efforts that have at best only slowed the gun grabbers’ push toward firearms registration and confiscation? If you have had enough of death by a thousand cuts, you are ready to take action to wipe out “gun control” — now.

Members of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) consider “gun control” to be an aggressive cancer. JPFO has a cure, a way to destroy “gun control”. JPFO has hard evidence that shows that the Nazi Weapons Law (March 18, 1938) is the source of the U.S Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA ’68). Adolph Hitler signed the Nazi Weapons Law. The Gestapo (Nazi National Secret Police) enforced it. In “Gun Control”: Gateway to Tyranny we present the official German text of the Nazi Weapons Law and a side-by-side translation into English. Even more deadly: a side-by-side, section-by-section comparison of the GCA ’68 with the Nazi Weapons Law. If you have this in your hands, no one can tell you that you’re imagining things.

The clincher: JPFO knows who implanted into American law cancerous ideas from the Nazi Weapons Law.

The likely culprit is a former senator, now deceased. We have documentary proof — see below — that he had the original text of the Nazi Weapons Law in his possession 4 months before the bill that became GCA ’68 was signed into law.

This former senator was a senior member of the U.S. team that helped to prosecute Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, Germany, in 1945-46. That is probably where he found out about the Nazi Weapons Law. He may have gotten a copy of it then, or at a later date. We cannot imagine why any U.S. lawmaker would own original texts of Nazi laws. To find out his name, read on.

With this hard evidence in your hands and in your head, you can destroy cancerous “gun control”. You can challenge anyone who backs “gun control”. You can show them the Nazi ideas, line by line.

The parallels between the Nazi law and GCA ’68 will leap at you from the page. For example, law abiding firearm owners in Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey must carry identification cards based on formats from the Nazi Weapons Law. Nazi based laws have no place in America. Thousands of Americans died or were wounded in the war to wipe out the Nazis. They did not suffer or die so that Hitler’s ideas could live on in America and kill more Americans. Remember Killeen, Texas! The 23 who died in Luby’s Cafeteria there died because they obeyed Nazi inspired “gun control” laws. The law forced them, unarmed, to face an armed madman.

To destroy “gun control” before more law abiding Americans are murdered by criminals or madmen helped by “gun control”, you need to get hold of the evidence as presented in “Gun Control”: Gateway to Tyranny. You can then challenge the media, the most aggressive backers of “gun control”. Ask media personalities in your city or town why they back Nazi based laws. You can help to erase “gun control”, Hitler’s last legacy.

GCA ’68 puts your life at risk right now. You have a constitutional civil right to be armed in order to protect yourself, because under U.S law the police have no duty to protect the average person:

“There is no constitutional right to be protected by the state (or Federal) against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such predators but it does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution. The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: it tells the state (gov’t) to let people alone; it does not require the federal government or the state to provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and order”
(Bowers v. DeVito, U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, 686F.2d 616 [1982]).

The Supreme Court last dealt with this issue in 1856; the 1982 decision states the position in modern language. The laws of virtually every state parallel federal law (see JPFO Special Report Dial 911 and Die! covered in Guns & Ammo, July 1992). This has been so ever since the Constitution was adopted in 1791. As a result, the framers of the Second Amendment deliberately created (guaranteed) an individual civil right to be armed. It is your only reliable defense against criminals. GCA ’68 ties your hands and keeps you from carrying out your legal duty to ensure your own self defense. GCA ’68 thus undermines a pillar of U.S. law and helps criminals to kill law abiding Americans. Hitler would be pleased.

Thus, GCA ’68 marked a new approach to “gun control”. It replaced the Federal Firearms Act (June 30, 1938), which was based on the federal power to regulate interstate commerce. The 1938 law required firearms dealers to get a federal license (which then cost $1). Only dealers could ship firearms across state lines. Ordinary people could receive shipments from dealers.

In GCA ’68 the government required that in almost all cases only dealers could send and receive firearms across state lines. This ended “mail order” sales of firearms by law abiding persons who are not licensed dealers. GCA ’68 hits you even harder. Congress gave federal bureaucrats in Washington D.C., the power to decide what kinds of firearms you can own. The framers of GCA ’68 borrowed an idea — that certain firearms are “hunting weapons” — from the Nazi Weapons Law (Section 21 and Section 32 of the Regulations, page 61 and page 73, respectively, of “Gun Control”: Gateway to Tyranny). The equivalent U.S. term, “sporting purpose,” was used to classify firearms. But it was not defined anywhere in GCA ’68. Thus, bureaucrats were empowered to ban whole classes of firearms. They have, in fact, done so.

We wanted to know the source of these new ideas. On reading “Dial 911 and Die!” a JPFO member told us he had seen an article — by Alan Stang in ‘Review of the News,’ October 4, 1967 (pages 15-20) — the author of which felt that the Nazi Weapons Law was the model for GCA ’68. We found the article. But Stang did not reproduce the Nazi law, so we could not check his conclusions.

We started to hunt for the text of the Nazi Weapons Law. We eventually found it, in the law library of an Ivy League university.

Until 1943-44, the German government published its laws and regulations in the ‘Reichsgesetzblatt,’ roughly the equivalent of the U.S. Federal Register. Carefully shelved by law librarians, the 1938 issues of this German government publication had gathered a lot of dust. In the ‘Reichsgesetzblatt’ issue for the week of March 21, 1938, was the official text of the Weapons Law (March 18, 1938). It gave Hitler’s Nazi party a stranglehold on the Germans, many of whom did not support the Nazis. We found that the Nazis did not invent “gun control” in Germany. The Nazis inherited gun control and then perfected it: they invented handgun control.

The Nazi Weapons Law of 1938 replaced a Law on Firearms and Ammunition of April 13, 1928. The 1928 law was enacted by a center-right, freely elected German government that wanted to curb “gang activity,” violent street fights between Nazi party and Communist party thugs. All firearm owners and their firearms had to be registered. Sound familiar? “Gun control” did not save democracy in Germany. It helped to make sure that the toughest criminals, the Nazis, prevailed.

The Nazis inherited lists of firearm owners and their firearms when they ‘lawfully’ took over in March 1933. The Nazis used these inherited registration lists to seize privately held firearms from persons who were not “reliable.” Knowing exactly who owned which firearms, the Nazis had only to revoke the annual ownership permits or decline to renew them.

In 1938, five years after taking power, the Nazis enhanced the 1928 law. The Nazi Weapons Law introduced handgun control. Firearms ownership was restricted to Nazi party members and other “reliable” people.

The 1938 Nazi law barred Jews from businesses involving firearms. On November 10. 1938 — one day after the Nazi party terror squads (the SS) savaged thousands of Jews, synagogues and Jewish businesses throughout Germany — new regulations under the Weapons Law specifically barred Jews from owning any weapons, even clubs or knives.

Given the parallels between the Nazi Weapons Law and the GCA ’68, we concluded that the framers of the GCA ’68 — lacking any basis in American law to sharply cut back the civil rights of law abiding Americans — drew on the Nazi Weapons Law of 1938.

Finding the Nazi Weapons Law whetted our appetite. We wanted to know who implanted this Nazi cancer in America. We began by probing the backgrounds of lawmakers who championed “gun control”. We focused on those whose bills became part of GCA ’68. GCA ’68 as enacted closely tracks proposals dating to August 1963. We felt that if the culprit were a lawmaker — or a congressional staffer — he or she would know Germany, German law and possibly even speak German. He or she probably would have spent time in Germany on business or during military service. Alternatively, if the culprit were not a member of Congress or a staffer, there would be testimony at the hearings to that effect.

Most potential suspects were quickly eliminated; they had no apparent ties to Germany. But one lawmaker caught our attention.

An old “Who’s Who” entry showed he had been a senior member of the U.S. team that prosecuted German war criminals at Nuremberg in 1945-46. Thus, he had lived in Germany just after the Nazi period. His official duties required him to look at Nazi records, including Nazi laws. In 1963 he led the effort to greatly expand the Federal Firearms Act of 1938.

We then got a break. We told a legal scholar of our findings. He was intrigued. He sent us an extract from the record of hearings held a few months prior to the enactment of GCA ’68. At the end of June 1968, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee to investigate Juvenile Delinquency — chaired by Thomas J. Dodd (D-CT) — held hearings on bills: (1) “To Require the Registration of Firearms” (S.3604). (2) “To Disarm Lawless Persons” (S.3634) and (3) “To Provide for the Establishment of a National Firearms Registry” (S.3637), among others.

U.S. Representative John Dingell (D-MI) testified at these Senate hearings on “gun control”. Senator Joseph D. Tydings (D-MD) chaired some of these hearings, in Dodd’s absence.

Rep. Dingell expressed concern that if firearms registration were required, it might lead to confiscation of firearms, as had happened in Nazi Germany. Tydings angrily accused Rep. Dingell of using “scare tactics”:

“Are you inferring that our system here, gun registration or licensing, would in any way be comparable to the Nazi regime in Germany, where they had a secret police, and a complete takeover?”

Rep. Dingell backed away.

(Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency of the Committee on the Judiciary, 90th Congress, 2nd Session, June 26, 27 and 28 and July 8, 9 and 10. 1968, pp. 479-80, 505-6 cited as Subcommittee Hearings.)

Tydings later inserted into the hearing record various documents, “concerning the history of Nazism and gun confiscation.”

Exhibit No. 62 (see reproduction) is fascinating. This letter — dated July 12, 1968 — is to Subcommittee Chairman Dodd from Lewis C. Coffin, Law Librarian at the Library of Congress. Coffin wrote:

” … we are enclosing herewith a translation of the Law on Weapons of March 18, 1938, prepared by Dr. William Solyom-Fekete of [the European Law Division — ed.] as well as the Xerox of the original German text which you supplied” (Subcommittee Hearings, p. 489, emphasis added).

This letter makes it public knowledge that at the end of June 1968 — 4 months before GCA ’68 was enacted — Senator Thomas J. Dodd, now deceased, personally owned a copy of the original German text of the Nazi Weapons Law.

Why did Dodd own the original German text of any Nazi law? Why did he make known that he owned it?

The Library of Congress then had (and still has) the ‘Reichsgesetzblatt’ in its collection. The Library of Congress translator, Dr. Solyom-Fekete, could easily have used the Library of Congress’ own copy.

Any member of Congress who wanted to read the Nazi Weapons Law need only have asked for it to be produced from the shelves of the Library of Congress and for it to be translated by Library of Congress experts. Why should any member of Congress ever have owned the original German text of the Nazi Weapons Law?

Dodd could have acquired the German text of the Nazi Weapons Law during his time at Nuremberg. But he had no need to do so.

Dodd did not personally handle the prosecution of Nazi Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, who signed the Nazi Weapons Law. The case against Frick was presented by Robert M.W. Kempner, Assistant Trial Counsel for the United States (see ‘Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal,’ cited as TMWC, Vol. V, pp. 352-67, Nuremberg, Germany, 1947).

Nor should the Nazi Weapons Law otherwise have come to Dodd’s attention. The Nazi Weapons Law was not used as evidence against Frick (see Kempner’s speech, TMWC, V, pp. 352-67 and ‘Index of Laws, Decrees, Orders, Directives, and the Administration of Justice in Nazi Germany and Nazi Dominated Countries’, TMWC, Vol. XXIII, pp. 430-33). The Nazi Weapons Law is not listed among documents submitted as evidence to the Tribunal by the American prosecutors (see Vol. XXIV, pp. 98-169).

The prosecutors at Nuremberg doubtless knew of the Nazi Weapons Law. They probably saw it in the ‘Reichsgesetzblatt.’ On the same day that Nazi Interior Minister Frick signed the Weapons Law, March 18, 1938, he signed another law governing security measures in newly annexed Austria. This law concerning Austria appeared in the ‘Reichsgesetzblatt’ — directly in front of the Weapons Law — and was introduced into evidence at Nuremberg (‘Reichsgesetzblatt’ 1938, I, p. 262; the Nazi Weapons Law was published in the same volume, p. 265; see TMWC, Vol. V, p.358 for reference to law concerning Austria).

Thus, the Nazi Weapons Law appeared to have no historical merit at Nuremberg and should not have attracted anyone’s notice, certainly not to the extent of causing anyone to want to keep a copy of it as a separate document.

If Dodd got his copy of the original German text of the Nazi Weapons Law during his time at Nuremberg, it likely was part of a collection of documents, for example, issues of the ‘Reichsgesetzblatt’.

But if he acquired the original German text of the Nazi Weapons Law after his service at Nuremberg, he must have done so for a very specific reason. The Nazi Weapons Law plainly did not figure at Nuremberg.

We may safely conclude it had little, if any, interest for those interested in the history of the Nazis’ rise to power. For example, the Nazi Weapons Law is not mentioned at all in William L. Shirer’s very thorough study of Nazi Germany, ‘The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1950).

At the hearings held by Dodd’s subcommittee at the end of June 1968, Rep. Dingell had objected to the firearms registration provision then being discussed. Dodd may have offered his copy of the Nazi Weapons Law to show that the specific proposal did not resemble anything in the Nazi law.

He may not have realized that he was revealing a broader truth; that the whole fabric of GCA ’68 was based on the Nazi Weapons Law, even if the specific registration proposal was not so based.

Alternatively, Dodd may not have cared whether or not anyone knew that he had the German text of the Nazi Weapons Law. He doubtless knew that months would pass before the hearing record was printed and so generally available for scrutiny. Thus, even if anyone then noticed the parallels between the two laws, the bill would already have become law.

Rep. Dingell does not appear to have pursued the matter: the firearms registration provision was not included in GCA ’68. The Congress was stampeded on “gun control” by public enthusiasm. Martin Luther King had been murdered on April 4, 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy had been murdered on June 6, 1968.

We are not the first to have seen this hearing record. But we appear to be the first to have recognized its importance. This hearing record suggests strongly that the late Senator Thomas J. Dodd (D-CT) himself implanted the Nazi Weapons Law into American law, or, at very least, helped others to do so.

Now you know the ugly truth about the roots of GCA ’68. But you need to see — with your own eyes — the hard evidence of the Nazi roots of “gun control” in America presented in “Gun Control”: Gateway to Tyranny.

If you want to destroy “gun control”, you can use this book to do it.

The Nazi Weapons Law of March 18, 1938, cleared the way for World War II and Nazi genocide against the Jews, Gypsies and 7,000,000 other people.

It can hardly be any surprise that anti-gun House members worked to sneak this bill through before anyone was aware that it was going to be considered. The negotiations have left legislation which is WORSE THAN THE ORGINAL McCARTHY BILL.

The worst aspect is, in section 3(2), that it STATUTORILY FREEZES IN regulations at 27 CFR 478.11 which would make you a “prohibited person” if:

* You were found by any “lawful authority” (including a IDEA school therapist, a Medicare psychologist, or a VA doctor to:
1. Represent even a minimal suicide risk;
2. Represent even a minimal playground risk to other students; or
3. Be incapable of managing your own affairs; or
* Were referred by such “lawful authority” to a psychiatrist or psychologist to be evaluated in connection with child custody proceedings or other contexts in which professional assessment is ordered.
This means that a future hypothetical pro-gun administration would be powerless to change the regulations so that they did not apply to:

— Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder;
— Kids put on Ritalin in connection with the IDEA program;
— Seniors diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in connection with Medicare’s home health care assistance; or
— Seniors (perhaps with a gun collection accumulated over a lifetime) who continue to live in their homes, but are put under guardianship by their adult children.
In the pretense of doing gun owners some huge favor, the bill explicitly recognizes, in section 101(c)(1)(C), that a psychiatrist’s finding is sufficient to make you a prohibited person, so long as that finding is based on one of the three criteria listed above. And, incidentally, when a kid is put on Ritalin, mom is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, a vet is found to have post-traumatic stress disorder, or gramps is put under a guardianship, it is ALMOST ALWAYS based, in whole or in part, on one of those three factors.

The bill, in section 101(c)(2)(A) and section 105, also requires federal agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs and states to set up procedures for prohibited persons with “mental disabilities” to “clear their names.” There are at least four problems with this:

1. First, prior to this bill, vets suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder were arguably not required to “clear their names.” Ditto, seniors with Alzheimer’s kids on Ritalin, etc. By statutorily codifying 27 CFR 478.11, this bill, for the first time, makes it statutorily mandated that these persons ARE and SHOULD BE prohibited persons under 18 USC 922 (d) & (g). So the bill makes it absolutely clear that vets, seniors, and adults who were problem kids are statutorily prohibited from owning guns (for life), and then graciously opens the possibility that they may apply for relief, in accordance with unspecified standards based wholly on the discretion of the government.

2. Second, there already is a procedure for persons to “clear their names.” It was created by McClure-Volkmer and is contained at 18 USC 925(c). The problem is that, for many years, Congress, on appropriations bills, has barred anyone from using this procedure. So, having blocked procedures allowing people to “clear their names,” the House is now creating redundant procedures to do the same thing. And they expect us to trust them?

3. Third, the bill states that “[r]elief and judicial review shall be available according to the standards prescribed in section 925(c) of title 18, United States Code.” But, since Congress has blocked the implementation of section 925(c), there is at least a question of whether this new, redundant procedure would not be similarly automatically blocked, at least at the federal level.

4. Fourth, there is also a procedure for “clearing one’s name” in subsection (g) of the Statues-at-Large portion of the Brady Law, when the name is erroneously submitted to NICS. The problem is that persons seeking to invoke this procedure to establish that they were incorrectly classified are routinely sent a form letter denying relief.

Ironically, a particularly dangerous person who is actually held in a mental institution may be able to obtain relief after he is “released or discharged,” pursuant to section 101(c)(1)(A). But a person who is found to be suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, childhood behavioral problems, or Alzheimer’s — and who is not held anywhere (or subjected to anything) from which they can be “released or discharged” — could never take advantage of a provision which is available to the criminally insane. And even this limited provision applies only to federal agencies, and not states.

Incidentally, if Congress appropriates NOTHING to implement this bill, the states will still be required to comply with the unfunded mandates or risk loss of DOJ funds under section 104.

All of this is on top of the usual concerns that the McCarthy bill would still require the states to turn over 90% of all information which was “relevant” to whether an individual was a prohibited person by reason of being “an unlawful user of or addicted to” any controlled substance or a mental defective (as that term will now be defined.).

Ironically, given the “tough enforcement” language being used to try to dislodge the “amnesty” bill, the new draft excludes crackdowns on illegal aliens — a category which, more than any other, includes terrorists who have snuck into our country. But the Attorney General, without a court order, can, at his or her unilateral discretion, demand any information held by any state (or its agent) which would be “relevant” in determining who fell into other categories, including Medicare medical records, IDEA medical records, National guard medical records, drug diversion records, records of drug charges not prosecuted, etc. And, unlike the convicted serial killer, the unprosecuted marijuana smoker, veteran, or senior would not be protected merely because his records were not available electronically.

And, finally, having compiled, potentially, the biggest list of dangerous persons in existence, the records could not be used to go after terrorists or other criminals.

SUMMARY: It was not the intention of 18 USC 922 (d) & (g) to make veterans, seniors, and misbehaved kids “prohibited persons” with an FBI dossier. Any provision in 27 CFR 478.11 to the contrary is just plain wrong, and should be changed. To freeze these regulations into statutory law is simply evil.

Lautenberg Gun Ban Racking up the Horror Stories
— Lifetime ban disarms unsuspecting parents, spouses
A wife tears her husband’s pocket during an argument. A daughter throws keys at her mom – and misses. Both `assailants’ are arrested, fingerprinted and booked. Welcome to Virginia’s new zero tolerance of domestic violence.

And welcome to some of the most recent victims of the Lautenberg gun ban.

The Washington Post Magazine began its October 26, 1997 issue with the above quote. Page after page of examples showed how innocent men, women and children are becoming victims of the latest war against domestic violence.
GOA Executive Director Larry Pratt with pro-gun Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-ID).
She has introduced a bill to repeal the Lautenberg gun ban (H.R. 1009)
and has currently secured 37 cosponsors.

And unwittingly, the Post Magazine made it painfully clear how easy it is for honest citizens to lose their Second Amendment rights as a result of the Lautenberg domestic gun ban.

The Lautenberg ban, passed in 1996, imposes a lifetime gun ban on those who have committed minor infractions in the home – “offenses” as slight as shoving a spouse or spanking a child.

Chenoweth bill nets almost 40 cosponsors
Gun Owners of America warned even before the gun ban passed how disastrous it would become. Unfortunately, these predictions have come true with a frightening accuracy.

Many in Congress have ignored the effects of this pernicious law that they helped enact.

But Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-ID) – who voted against the Lautenberg ban – has shown again and again why she is one of the staunchest defenders of the Second Amendment.

She introduced H.R. 1009 early last year to repeal this law and has secured 37 cosponsors since then.

Rep. Chenoweth continues to press on. But the Republican leadership has dragged its feet and shown no desire to push this legislation.

The slight tearing of her husband’s pocket last year was enough to cart her off to the police station – even though her husband refused to press charges.

The husband, Tom, states he had only called the police to get “documentation in a custody dispute.”

When Tom insisted he didn’t want to press charges, he was told that “pressing charges is not [your] decision, it is the decision of the commonwealth of Virginia.”

Unfortunately, Virginia’s new “zero tolerance” requires police to press charges in such cases. Now, if and when Judy plea-bargains to a misdemeanor and pays a minimal fine, she will lose her Second Amendment rights forever.

Daughter flings keys, loses rights
The Washington Post Magazine also reported how a daughter was arrested, to the shock and horror of her parents, for throwing a set of keys near her mother.

Twenty-one year old Lora, also of Virginia, lost her temper and flung an empty water bottle and her car keys.

The water bottle landed on the front steps, but the keys fell near her mother.

For that, Lora was arrested, booked, and told she must not have any contact with her mom for three days, even though she’s still living at home.

As stated by the Post Magazine,

In Lora’s case, there really is no question. In the eyes of the law, you don’t have to hit somebody to commit assault – all you have to do is try to hit them.
Yet clearly, the rules have changed.

Officer Mike Twomey, who assisted in the arrest, remarks that “in the old days, the proper response would have been to say, `hey, ladies, cool it.’ Now, arrest is the only option.”

The Post Magazine reports that seven states plus the District of Columbia have mandatory arrest policies, and 26 others, including Maryland, have “presumptive arrest” policies that give officers a bit of discretion but still encourage them to make an arrest. Another 12 have laws that blend the two approaches.

Lautenberg creating new victims
With the Lautenberg gun ban in place, a new category of “victim” is emerging as a result of these tougher state laws – like the one in Virginia.

“A lot of times, I think arrests are being made when they shouldn’t be,” says Kenneth E. Noyes, staff attorney and coordinator of the domestic violence project for Legal Services of Northern Virginia.

He is not alone in this opinion.

“I am stunned, quite frankly, because that was not the intention of the law,” says Judith Mueller of the Virginia-based Women’s Center.

“It’s disheartening to think that it could be used punitively and frivolously. Frivolously being the operative word.”

Dial 911; someone goes to jail
Before the Lautenberg gun ban, most people involved in minor altercations would simply plea-bargain to a domestic violence misdemeanor, pay a small (say, $25) fine, and be on their way.

But times are changing. Even the Post Magazine questioned whether every 911 call should end in an arrest. For example, what should the police do when:

* A man calls 911 to report that his wife has destroyed his Mercedes with a ball- peen hammer and would like her, please, arrested?
* A father calls to say that his son threw food at him, and now he would like the teenager, please, arrested?
* A husband calls 911 to say that his wife slapped him with an open hand and he would like her, please, arrested?
Under the new laws, all these “assailants” could spend a night in jail. The question is, do they really deserve to have a domestic violence misdemeanor on their record?
And even more importantly, should they now lose their gun rights forever?

It is true that the Lautenberg law allows for the restoration of rights following the expungement of the domestic violence record or an official pardon.

But while this is true on paper, it rarely occurs in practice. As a rule, elected officials fear having to “stick their necks” out on what is considered to be a politically sensitive issue.

Moreover, it is especially true that judges are reluctant to expunge the records of people who have since moved out of the county or the state.

Spank your child, forfeit your guns
Gun Owners of America reported last year how one GOA member – who probably represents scores of others – stepped forward to tell his horrific story.

Many years ago, this father gave his child a swat on the rear. Because the father was going through an ugly divorce, his estranged wife, with the encouragement of her mother, reported the man to the police for child abuse.

The father had spanked his daughter with an open hand on the buttocks. After a nasty court battle, the man finally accepted a domestic violence misdemeanor conviction.

Now he is disarmed for life by the Lautenberg gun ban, simply because he spanked his child.

Upon learning of the Lautenberg gun ban, this GOA member, seeking to be in compliance with the law, sold his collection of firearms. He has forfeited his Second Amendment rights, for simply spanking his own daughter.

Lautenberg disarming people from all walks of life
More recently, a Michigan woman made national news when her case went to trial for the same offense.

Kathi Herren, 32, swatted her child in discipline. The result? She has now lost her Second Amendment rights because of that swat.

“If you do, you could lose your right to protect your children — forever. That makes absolutely no sense at all.”

Judge Brian MacKenzie announced that “he had no intention of sending her to jail.”

And thus, the irony remains: despite serving no jail time, despite this being a very minor “offense,” Herren will be punished for the rest of her life.

No guns. No self-protection. In an emergency, her only recourse now is to dial 911.

All of the above examples are, of course, only the tip of the iceberg.

Gun Owners of America frequently receives reports of police officers, army sergeants, gun dealers and people from all walks of life who are being disarmed by the Lautenberg ban for the very slightest of infractions.

“This law must be repealed,” Pratt said. “And Congress owes it to the people to put Rep. Chenoweth’s bill to a vote.”

“But if Congress doesn’t, then we will rate the cosponsorship of her bill instead of a vote. Those who cosponsor H.R. 1009 will be listed as having cast a pro-gun vote. All the others will have to answer to their constituents in November.

“You can dress up a pig, but you can’t make it sing.” Likewise, efforts to paint the McCarthy/ Schumer gun control bill as anything other than an anti-gun travesty are going to be just as unsuccessful

There are a lot of (intentional) tricks in this bill. But there are two important things to remember:

* First, for the first time, this bill would statutorily impose a lifetime gun ban on battle-scarred veterans, troubled teens, and ailing seniors — based solely on the diagnosis of a psychologist, as opposed to a finding by a court.
* Second, at the sole discretion of BATFE and the FBI, this bill would compile the largest mega-list of personal information on Americans in existence — particularly medical and psychological records. But information on the mega-list could not be used to battle terrorism and crime… only to bar Americans from owning guns. And, incidentally, it’s the medical records themselves, not just a list of names, that would turned over under section 102 (b) (1) (C) (iv).
And while the worst aspects of a newly enacted law are not always immediately apparent — it took 32 years for 922 (g) to be used against veterans — they will eventually come back to haunt us. And, by then, it will be too late to do anything about it.

ANSWERS TO ERRONEOUS STATEMENTS MADE BY ONE “GUN GROUP”
Recently, another gun group has released a document attacking Gun Owners of America and making a series of misleading statements. Here is a point-by-point rebuttal to that group’s statements.

1. MISSTATEMENT: “… these bills [H.R. 2640 and any counterparts] would only enforce current prohibitions [on gun ownership]….”

THE TRUTH: BATFE has long tried to nudge the law to the point where a simple psychiatric diagnosis would put your name on the FBI’s “list’ and impose a lifetime gun ban on you. But this bill goes even farther in that direction than BATFE could have hoped.

First, a little history: 18 U.S.C. 922(d) & (g) make you a prohibited person if you are “adjudicated as a mental defective….” But the question of what “adjudicated” means and who has to do the “adjudication” is a battle which has been raging for decades.

When I was working in the Senate (1975-93), the view was that this provision barred gun sales to people who had been judged not guilty by reason of insanity — or at least had come before a court, in a context where due process was afforded them. But, there has been an effort to extend this not just to the actions of courts, magistrates, etc., but also to any diagnosis by a federal-(or state)-sanctioned psychologist or psychiatrist.

Hence, if a person were —

a. A vet found by a VA doctor to be suffering from post traumatic stress disorder [PTS],

b. A kid put on Ritalin under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), in part because of the increased danger of playground fights;

c. A senior with Alzheimer’s receiving home health care under the Medicare program —

then, under the new interpretation being pushed by anti-gun advocates, that person would be subject to a lifetime gun ban IF the term “adjudication” included a diagnosis, as opposed to just a court order.

The efforts of BATFE to expand its jurisdiction are most fully contained in C.F.R. 478.11, where BATFE regulations provide that adjudication can be made by any “lawful authority.” The same regulations also expand the ambit of “mental defective” to include a person who is “a danger to himself or to others; or [who] [l]acks the mental capacity to contract or manage his own affairs….” Furthermore, in a letter dated May 9, 2007, BATFE writes that “danger” means any danger, not simply “imminent” or “substantial” danger….” [Emphasis added]

Hence, BATFE takes the position that something short of adjudication by a court — and that alone — is enough to make an individual a “prohibited person.”

In line with this interpretation, the Department of Veterans Affairs, in the final year of the Clinton administration, sent the names of 83,000 veterans to the Instantcheck system, based generally on findings of post-traumatic stress disorder. However, that action caused so much controversy that, to my knowledge, few if any, additional names have been sent, notwithstanding reports that as many as one-quarter to one-third of Iraq veterans suffer from this problem.

So, we have this very broad definition (“diagnosis” = “adjudication”) which we have been battling over for more than a decade. And we have BATFE regulations which BATFE has been loathe to enforce, and which don’t go quite so far as to say explicitly that a diagnosis is the same as court order, but could be interpreted to do so.

This bill would definitively resolve that debate on the side of anti-gun interpretation even broader than BATFE’s, and would make it clear that a psychiatrist’s diagnosis would be tantamount to a court order!

It would do this first in section 3(2), which provides BATFE’s regulations concerning mental health issues now have the force of statutory law — and cannot be changed, except by statute.

In addition, section 101(c) (1) (C) is a Trojan Horse which makes this even clearer — and goes even further. It provides that a person can be made a prohibited person, based “solely on a medical finding of disability” if that finding is (presumably, explicitly or implicitly) based on a finding that the person is a danger to himself or others or is unable to manage his own affairs.

Hence, a VA-, IDEA-, or Medicare-related diagnosis of a veteran, kid or senior, based on a psychiatrist’s finding of even microscopic amount of danger (or inability to manage one’s own affairs) is enough to put the vet, kid, or senior on the FBI’s “list.”

Remember:

* According to the May 9 letter, the “danger” can be microscopic in magnitude.
* In addition, cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, ADD, or Alzheimer’s inherently involve at least some amount of “danger” or incapacity.
2. MISLEADING STATEMENT: “H.R. 2640 would allow some people now unfairly prohibited from owning guns to have their rights restored….”

THE TRUTH: I was personally involved in creating a path for restoring the Second Amendment rights of prohibited persons like Iraq veterans when I shepherded the McClure-Volkmer Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986 on behalf of Senator James McClure. Unfortunately, for years, Chuck Schumer has successfully pushed appropriations language which defunded this procedure. And, now, ironically, it is Schumer who is trying to lure us to pass his bill by a “restoration of rights” procedure which is more limited than the one currently on the books — and which he has consistently blocked.

THE TRUTH: In fact, McCarthy — not Dingell — is the chief sponsor of the legislation. Dingell isn’t even the chief cosponsor.

4. MISLEADING STATEMENT: “H.R. 2640 would prevent use of federal ‘adjudications’ that consist only of medical diagnosis without findings that the people involved are dangerous or mentally incompetent.”

THE TRUTH: First of all, up until now there has been no statutory basis for making a person a prohibited person on the basis of a diagnosis. So McCarthy isn’t doing gun owners any favor by establishing this principle — and then “generously” carving a small loophole in it.

Second, in the case of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, kids with attention deficit disorder, or seniors with Alzheimer’s, de minimis levels of “danger” or incompetence are almost always an underlying issue (and, hence, an implicit finding). And the statement conveniently fails to mention the standard in the BATFE’s May 9 letter, starting that “any” danger, no matter how de minimis, is sufficient.

Third, note the use of the word “federal.” State diagnosis in connection with IDEA, Medicare or the state National Guard would be enough to make veterans, kids, and seniors prohibited persons — even without meeting the de minimis “danger” standard in 101(c) (1) (C), which is applicable only to federal diagnosis, not state diagnosis.

5. MISLEADING STATEMENET: “H.R. 2640 would require all federal agencies that impose mental health adjudications… to provide a process for ‘relief from disabilities’….”

THE TRUTH: As we have seen, McClure-Volkmer created a path for restoring the Second Amendment rights of prohibited persons like Iraq veterans. Given that Chuck Schumer has successfully pushed appropriations language which has defunded this procedure since 1992 (without significant opposition), what is it to prevent him from doing the same thing with respect to the new (redundant) procedures? This is like stealing our money and then using it to bargain with us. And, incidentally, why should we reward Schumer for his bad faith in blocking relief from disabilities under McClure-Volkmer by passing his bill in exchange for a restoration-of-rights “chit” which is more limited than the law currently on the books — and which he has consistently blocked?

6. MISLEADING STATEMENT: “As a practical matter, the mental health disability is the only firearm disqualifier that can never be removed.”

THE TRUTH: As a practical matter, this is just not true. States vary widely on the ability to expunge felonies and “Lautenberg misdemeanors,” even for crimes which are very old, relatively minor, or regulatory in nature.

7. MISLEADING STATEMENT: “H.R. 2640 would prohibit reporting of mental health adjudications or commitments by federal agencies when those adjudications or commitments have been removed…. H.R. 2640 would also make clear that if a federal adjudication or commitment has expired or been removed, it would no longer bar a person from possessing or receiving firearms….”

THE TRUTH: This is not exactly true.

First, it’s not entirely clear how a diagnosis gets “removed” — or what incentive any psychologist would have for issuing a written finding that there is not “any danger” whatsoever that a battle-scarred veteran or an ADD kid will never get into even a minor scrape as a result of the condition. Even if that were possible, the process of proving that to a government agency and getting the agency to tell the FBI to take a name off its “list” is certainly something 83,000 veterans currently wrongly classified as prohibited persons are not going to be able to do.

Second, there is language in the bill which could arguably restore the rights of the most dangerous — but not those who were simply “diagnosed” with PTS, ADD, Alzheimer’s, etc. Hence, while someone who was actually intended to be covered by 922(d) & ) (g) and is dangerous and locked up might actually be able to get his rights back by proving that he had been “released and discharged” under 101(c) (1) (C) (A), someone who is just subject to a diagnosis — and hence can’t be “released or discharged” from an institution which never restrained him — cannot benefit from this provision.

Third, again, note the use of the word “federal.” State diagnosis in connection with IDEA, Medicare, or the State National Guard would be enough to make veterans, kids and seniors prohibited person — but these victims would not be able to restore their rights under sections 101(c) (1) (A), even if a thousand psychologists testified that they were wholly “normal.”

8. MISLEADING STATEMENT: “States that receive funding would also need to have a relief from disabilities program for mental adjudications….”

THE TRUTH: As we’ve already stated twice, McClure-Volkmer created a path for restoring the Second Amendment rights of prohibited persons like Iraq veterans, ADD kids, and seniors with Alzheimer’s. Given that Chuck Schumer has successfully pushed appropriations language which has defunded this procedure since 1992 (without significant opposition), it is certainly not beyond the capacity of an appropriations rider to bar even state procedures which are directly or indirectly funded by federal funds under this bill.

Incidentally, even before Schumer blocked the procedure, the ability to get “relief from disabilities” under section 925(c) was always an expensive long shot. Presumably, this new procedure will be the same.

9. STATEMENT: “… it would give states an incentive to report people [like Seung-Hui Cho]… who were found after a full court hearing to be a danger….”

OBSERVATION: You can debate forever whether the facts of the Cho case bring him under 18 U.S.C. 922(g). But the fact is that, if you want to reach persons adjudicated by court, why don’t you just limit the bill to court adjudications, rather than extending it to diagnoses?

OBSERVATION: Subsection (g) of the Statutes-at-Large portion of the Brady Law already requires removal of inaccurate information. However, persons we know who have tried to invoke this section have received a form letter summarily rejecting their requests. If the FBI is willing to ignore subsection (g), why would we expect that a redundant procedure doing the same thing would be effectual?

OBSERVATION: I DRAFTED THE ORIGINAL Smith amendment, which, in modified form, is carried over annually on appropriations bills to achieve this result. (Incidentally, the “gun group” which is currently attacking GOA was, at the time, urging Smith not to force his amendment to a vote, on the assumption that he would lose.) If we really want to make the Smith amendment permanent — and I suspect there is supermajority support for this — we can do it on this year’s appropriations.

12. STATEMENT: “The legislation requires an audit [by the GAO]….”

OBSERVATION: A congressman — particularly a chairman or ranking member — can order a GAO audit anytime he wants without this legislation.

THE TRUTH: 27 C.F.R. 478.11 does, at least initially, exclude a person who voluntarily seeks counseling. However, the regulation specifically states that the “voluntariness” can quickly turn to “involuntariness” under a number of circumstances, such as when the individual seeks to withdraw from the “voluntary” arrangement.

Section 101(c) (1) (C) of this bill establishes that a diagnosis based “solely on a medical finding or disability” makes a person a prohibited person under the bill — and requires that the person’s “records” be turned over to the FBI — if the diagnosis is based on a finding of even a microscopic amount of risk, which will be invariably involved with any PTS veteran, ADD kid, or Alzheimer’s senior.

As a result, it is fairly clear that the question of whether treatment is voluntary or involuntary will no longer be relevant under the bill.

SUMMARY
Agencies invariably use the regulatory process to try to expand their jurisdiction. And it is never a “status quo act” to codify these abusive and expansive regulations — which only gives an agency a platform to expand further.

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Olaf & Sven were fishing one day when Sven
pulled out a cigar. Finding he had no matches,
he asked his friend Olaf for a light.
“Ya, shure, I tink I haff a lighter,” he replied.
Then reaching into his tackle box, he pulled out
a huge Bic lighter, 10 inches long.
“Yiminy Cricket!” exclaimed Sven, taking the
huge Bic lighter in his hand and lighting his cigar.
“Vere dit yew git dat monster lighter??”
“Vell,” replied Olaf, “I got it from my Genie.”
“You haff a Genie??” Sven asked.
“Ya, shure. He’s right dere in my tackle kit,”
says Olaf, motioning to his beat up old tin box.
“Could I see him?” Sven asks excitedly.
So Olaf opens his tackle box and sure enough,
out pops the Genie in a puff of blue smoke.
Addressing the Genie, Sven says, “Hey dere, Mr.
Genie! I’m bein’ a good friend of your master. Vill
you grant me vun vish?”
“Yes, I will,” says the Genie.
So Sven asks the Genie for a million bucks. The
Genie disappears back into the tackle box leaving
Sven sitting there, waiting for his million bucks.
Shortly, the sky darkens and is soon filled with
the sound of a million ducks flying overhead.
Over the roar of the million quacking ducks, a
very unhappy Sven yells over at Olaf.
“Yumpin’ Yimminy, Olaf ….I be askin’ for a million
bucks, not a million ducks!”
Olaf answers, “…..Ya sure, I forgot to tell yew dat
da Genie is bein’ hart of hearing. Do yew really tink I
be askin’ for a 10-inch BIC???”

The Tree Hugger
While walking through the Stone Mountain
State Park woods a man came upon another
man hugging a tree with his ear firmly against
the tree.
Seeing this he inquired, “Just out of curiosity,
what the heck are you doing?”
“Shh…. I’m listening to the music of the tree,”
the other man replied in a whisper.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me!!” said the first man.
“No, would you like to give it a try?” replied
the hugger of the tree.
Understandably curious about this never heard
of phenomenon, the man says, “Well, OK.”
He wrapped his arms around the large tree and
pressed his ear up against it. With this, the other
guy slapped a pair of handcuffs on him, took his
wallet, jewelry, and car keys then stripped him buck
naked and left.
Two hours later another “nature lover” strolled by,
saw this poor guy handcuffed to the tree stark naked,
and asked, “Dude!! What the hell happened to you?”
He told the guy the whole terrible story about how
he got there and how he was tricked and robbed of all
his clothes, money, and even his car!
When he finished telling his story, the other guy
shook his head in sympathy, walked around behind him,
kissed him gently behind the ear, and said,
“…..This just ain’t gonna be your day, Cupcake.”

FAMOUS PUBS OF SCOTLAND, ENGLAND AND IRELAND

“Y’ know, lads” said the Scotsman, “I still prreferr the pubs back home. In Glasgow therrre’s a wonderful bonny little barrr called McTavish’s. The landlorrd there goes out of his way for the local laddies, so much so that when you buy four drrinks, aye, he’ll buy the fifth drink for you.”

“Well, jolly good”, said the Englishman, “…but at my local, the Red Lion, the barman there will buy you your third drink after you buy the first TWO.”

“Ahhhhh, that bein’ nothin’, me buckos”, said the Irishman. “….Back home in me own Dublin, there’s Ryan’s Bar. Now, the moment ya be settin’ set foot in the place they’ll buy you a drink, then another, all the drinks ya like!! Then, when ya be havin’ enough of the drinkin’, they’ll be takin’ ya upstairs and see that ya gets laid all good an’ proper. …And its bein’ all on the house!”

The Englishman and Scotsman immediately scorn the Irishman’s preposterous claims. But he swears every single word is true.
“Well then,” said the Englishman “….did this actually happen to YOU?”
“Not to me myself, personally, no,” said the Irishman, “… But it did happen to me own lovely 22-year old sister.”

This Car Wreck Phone Call in Texas…was played
on the air from a morning drive radio show in Texas

Turn the speakers on…..and get ready……If you
can’t listen to it now, save this until you have a time
when you can listen to it. It’s pretty danged funny
(…no, it’s hilarious!). There is no swearing or bad
language of any kind so it’s pretty safe to turn up.

A phone call from a man in Texas who witnessed a
car accident that involved 4 elderly women. It was so
popular when they played it on CHUM FM that they
had to put it on their website.

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Serving with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines, Staff Sgt. Anthony Viggiani was patrolling the mountainous region of the Zabol Province in Afghanistan when his squad came under intense fire from Taliban militants. The assault left two wounded Marines pinned behind a small rock. Worse, the terrain made it nearly impossible at first to see where the gunfire was coming from.

As Viggiani and a fellow Marine crept up the steep slopes, they encountered direct fire from a cave, where the militants had continued their assault against the two wounded Marines. With his entire squad pinned down by enemy fire, Viggiani was the only one left who could take out the militants. Moving into a better position, he saw movement within the cave and fired repeatedly, eventually taking out three insurgent fighters by tossing a grenade. The fight was not over, however. Although Viggiani was shot in the leg by enemy fire from another direction, he refused medical treatment and kept fighting while assisting other wounded Marines. In all, Viggiani and his squad eliminated 14 insurgents.

For his heroism that day, Viggiani was awarded the Navy Cross, the highest Marine honor. “If somebody does their job, brings the boys home alive and accomplishes the mission, that’s it to me,” he said. “All of my boys, I wouldn’t trade them for anything.”

And for a little Humor…
In other Marine news, former Marine Bill Barnes, 72, of Michigan displayed his true grit by taking out a 27-year-old pickpocket. When he felt a hand reaching for cash in his pocket, he grabbed the offending wrist and promptly landed six or seven punches. Barnes later quipped, “I wouldn’t want my wife to give me hell for lettin’ that guy get my money.” Ooohrah! Semper Fi!

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The roots of liberty— “The unanimous Declaration…”
The roots of liberty and American government run deep—back to the year 1164 in Clarendon, England. At that time, the idea of democratic republicanism and the liberal state could hardly be imagined. The student of English history will remember this as the place and date of the Constitutions of Clarendon, which struck the decisive blow in the battle over royal prerogatives between Henry II, King of England, and Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Installed as a puppet, Becket had found true faith and refused to bow to the whims of a tyrannical king. Becket’s refusal to sign and submit to the Constitutions of Clarendon forced him into exile and, ultimately, led to his assassination at the hands of Henry’s knights—hardly a picture of democratic process.

Clarendon has been remembered as a loss of rights for the church, a triumph of the secular over the sacred. However true this interpretation of events may be, Clarendon’s significance for the movement toward the modern liberal state is equally important. With Clarendon, the English church would no longer be able to use excommunication to enforce its temporal demands over the subjects of the crown. Rather, trial by jury began to remove arbitrary justice from the hands of bishops and kings alike, replaced by justice dispensed under a code of law administered by fellow citizens. Despite Henry’s dubious intentions, Clarendon begins to delineate the modern relationship between church and state: Civil law, not Rome, would hereafter govern temporal affairs.

Half a century later, in 1215, the next major leap forward in modern liberal governance would be ushered in with Magna Carta, the “Great Charter,” issued by King John of England at the demand of his rebellious barons. Magna Carta was reissued several times and comes to us in its final form, issued in 1297 by Edward I, John’s grandson. Though the context for Magna Carta is a very different one, it is nonetheless an important corrective to the abuses of Clarendon, establishing the inviolable freedom of the Church of England from the English crown. If Clarendon protected the state from the church, Magna Carta protected the church from the intrusions of the state.

Far from limited to church-state relations, Magna Carta formalized the fundamental rights enjoyed by all citizens of the modern liberal state. Among others, Magna Carta codified the following: rights of inheritance, property rights, protections for debtors, the rights of localities to a degree of self-government, trade rights, retributive justice (designing punishments to fit the crime, as opposed to one punishment for all crimes), protections for citizens from the abuses of domestic authorities, requirements of witnesses to establish guilt, and the right to trial by one’s peers. Most important, however, was the heart of Magna Carta, which established the objective rule of law over and above the subjective rule of the king. Rex Lex (“The king is law”) was slowly being replaced by Lex Rex (“The law is king”). With Magna Carta, the king was bound under the law by a national covenant—a declaration of mutual obligations of the ruler and those ruled to one another.

John Locke would articulate this contractual vision of a government of laws existing to protect the liberties of its citizens in his Second Treatise on Government (1690). The context for Locke’s thought was the Glorious Revolution (1688) and the English Bill of Rights (1689), in which William and Mary of Orange affirmed the limits of government, protecting the liberties of its citizens and correcting the gross abuse of royal power under James II.

It is in this setting that Locke summarizes the purpose of the state. In Chapter 9 of his Second Treatise, “Of the Ends of Political Society and Government,” Locke writes on the preservation of property, concluding that men come together and subject themselves to laws. Governments exist to judge and enforce this rule of law. In this way men voluntarily covenant together to form governments, each surrendering some freedom in order to preserve the liberty of all. The one (the state) and the many (its members) thus mutually serve the cause of liberty.

When the Stamp Act was passed for the American colonies in 1765, when courts of admiralty enforced justice without trial by jury and a standing army held in the colonies during a time of peace, the purpose of government to guarantee the liberties of its citizens was foremost in the minds of many colonists.

The First Continental Congress met in October 1774 to seek redress for the colonies’ grievances. Their Declaration and Resolves laid claim to the rights that had evolved over the centuries, from Clarendon to the English Bill of Rights. The colonies are entitled, Congress declared, to “life, liberty and property,” and “they have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.”

When the British crown and parliament refused to recognize the equal rights of the colonists as British citizens, the Americans seized upon another essential feature of the idea of government as covenant: If a government ceases to exist under its obligations to its citizens as the preserver of liberty, then the contract is broken and the citizens reserve the right to abjure that delinquent government. In other words, government is by consent of the governed.

Over the course of America’s struggle for independence, this theme would be rearticulated and expanded upon by some of the colonies’ greatest minds: Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, Thomas Jefferson’s Lockean forerunner to the colonies’ Declaration of Independence; Patrick Henry’s Resolutions of the Stamp Act (1765) and his later cry of, “;Give me liberty or give me death!” (1775); Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) and The Rights of Man (1792); and Samuel Adams’ speech at the statehouse in Philadelphia (1776), to name a few. Government is a covenant, they said, and a covenant cannot be broken without consequence.

Later, these Patriots would turn from justifications for their declaration of independence from the old government to articulations of what should replace it. The 12 years between the institution of the Articles of Confederation (1777), which maintained the maximal autonomy of the individual states, and the ratification and implementation of the United States Constitution (1789), which would turn a confederation of states into a federal republic, where punctuated by heated debate about the sustenance of liberty under any unified government.

Having thrown off one tyrannical government, federalists, who advocated a strong central government, and anti-federalists, who advocated states’ rights, were sharply divided as to the powers of the new government. Which model would better guarantee the objective of a government existing to preserve the liberties of its citizens?

The federalists won that debate, but two centuries later, it is clear that many of the elements of a “tyrannical government” have re-emerged, as predicted by anti-federalist protagonist Thomas Jefferson. Most notably, Jefferson warned that the judiciary would become a “;despotic branch” and that the Constitution would be “a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.”

Indeed, the despotic branch has twisted and shaped our government’s foundational document into what in now called in common parlance, a “;Living Constitution”, effectively undermining “;Constitutional eisegesis”—the constructionist interpretation of the Constitution as written and ratified.

If the Constitution can be amended by judicial diktat rather than as prescribed by law, then we are a nation governed by men rather than the law, and the consequences are dire.

Where does that leave us today? Few who serve in the Executive, Legislative or Judicial branches of our national government honor their oaths to “;support and defend” our Constitution.

Of course, the Constitution is subordinate to the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution’s author, James Madison, wrote Thomas Jefferson on 8 February 1825 these words concerning the supremacy of the Declaration of Independence over our nation’s Constitution: “On the distinctive principles of the Government… of the U. States, the best guides are to be found in… The Declaration of Independence, as the fundamental Act of Union of these States.”

The Declaration elucidates “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It also records “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…”

Like this:

Should a robber break into my house, and with a dagger at my throat make me seal deeds to convey my estate to him, would this give him any title? Just such a title, by his sword, has an unjust conqueror, who forces me into submission. The injury and the crime is equal, whether committed by the wearer of a crown, or some petty villain. The title of the offender, and the number of his followers, make no difference in the offence, unless it be to aggravate it. The only difference is, great robbers punish little ones, to keep them in their obedience; but the great ones are rewarded with laurels and triumphs, because they are too big for the weak hands of justice in this world, and have the power in their own possession, which should punish offenders.

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Murphy’s Lesser Known Laws
1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
2. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
3. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.
4. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
5. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.
6. If you lined up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them, five or six at a time, on a hill, in the fog.
7. The things that come to those who wait will be the scraggly junk left by those who got there first.
8. The shin bone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.
9. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
10. When you go into court, you are putting yourself into the hands of 12 people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Lastly; Found on a poster in a shop just outside Leadville Colorado.
“Mister Murphy was a F**king optimist!” Printed some time in the 1850’s, the shop owner refused to sell it!

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This is why women should not take men shopping against their will. After Mr. & Mrs. Fenton retired, Mrs. Fenton insisted that her husbandAlways accompany her on her frequent trips to Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, Mr. Fenton was like most men: he found shopping boring &preferred to get in & get out. Equally unfortunately, Mrs. Fenton was like most women: she loved to browse One day Mrs. Fenton received the following letter from her local Wal-Mart. Dear Mrs. Fenton,Over the past six months, your husband has been causing quite a commotion inour store. We cannot tolerate this behavior and may be forced to ban both ofyou from the store. Our complaints against Mr. Fenton are listed below andare Documented by our video surveillance cameras: 1. June 15: Took 24 boxes of condoms and randomly put them in people’s cartswhen they weren’t looking. 2. July 2: Set all the alarm clocks in Housewares to go off at 5- minuteIntervals.3. July 7: Made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women’srestroom. 4. July 19: Walked up to an employee and told her in an official voice, Code 3 in Housewares. Get on it right away”5. August 4: Went to the Service Desk and tried to put a bag of M&M’s onlayaway. 6. September 14: Moved a “CAUTION – WET FLOOR” sign to a carpeted area.7. September 15: Set up a tent in the camping department & told othershoppers he’d invite them in if they would bring pillows and blankets fromthe bedding department. 8. September 23: When a clerk asked if they could help him he began cryingand screamed, “Why can’t you people just leave me alone?”9. October 4: Looked right into the security camera & used it as a mirrorwhile he picked his nose. 10. November 10: While handling guns in the hunting department, he asked theclerk where the antidepressants were.11 December 3: Darted around the store suspiciously while loudly humming the”Mission Impossible” theme. 12. December 6: In the auto department, he practiced his “Madonna look” byusing different sizes of funnels.13. December 18: Hid in a clothing rack and when people browsed through,yelled “PICK ME! PICK ME!” 14. December 21: When an announcement came over the loud speaker, he assumeda fetal position and screamed “OH NO! IT’S THOSE VOICES AGAIN!” And last, but not least… 15. December 23: Went into a fitting room, shut the door, waited awhile,then yelled very loudly, “Hey! There’s no toilet paper in here!” Regards,Wal-Mart